


We've still got each other... Kind of

by Jawncakes



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Multi, Omega Verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:00:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 12,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24509578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jawncakes/pseuds/Jawncakes
Summary: Vignette after Mary's death, somewhere during the reconciliation. Might be continued.
Relationships: Irene Adler & Jim Moriarty, Molly Hooper/Jim Moriarty, Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes & Molly Hooper, Sherlock Holmes/Jim Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/Victor Trevor, victor trevor is a real person
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This has been my first-ever fanfic. Thanks to any and all readers. I'm using this writing as therapy to deal with some stuff, and I'm hoping for reconciliations, so there will probably be more. I can't guarantee any kind of structure or that it won't be angsty as fuck while also being the fluffiest piece of trash.  
> EDIT  
> I am no longer hoping for reconciliations. Anything might happen. You have been warned.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end: come to make amends  
> Some do not attend: the end

**INT. apartment**

JOHN WATSON _walks in, in a huff_

No help at all, are you?

SHERLOCK HOLMES, _lounging upside down on the sofa_

I help a lot already, don’t you think?

JOHN, _stymied_

That’s not what I thought you’d say.

HOLMES, _bemused_

What did you think I would say?

JOHN, _stymied again_

Ehm. Some unhelpful rubbish, I suppose

A BEAT

HOLMES

I see.

_He clears his throat and threads his fingers through the carpet_

Did you also expect me to help carry yours? I must be getting soft in my old age to have conveyed that impression. My dear Watson, I do apologize.

JOHN

My what?

BEAT

Don’t call me Watson, It makes me sound like your basset hound.

HOLMES, _absently_

Rubbish. It was a play on the rubbish comment. 

BEAT

HOLMES, _chuckles and sits up_

You would make a lovely dog. Not a basset hound, though.

JOHN _mimes dog paws, slackens his jaw and s_ _oftly woofs_

HOLMES _laughs, covers face_

JOHN _moves closer and quietly w_ _oofs again_

HOLMES _uncovers his face, lets the proximity happen and the tension rise. Then, in his deep, resonant voice, m_ _eows._

_They both laugh, faces no more than 3 feet apart. At the first non laughing breath:_

JOHN

I see.

HOLMES, _neutrally_

Do you?

JOHN, _coyly_ :

Do you think I do?

HOLMES _diverting_ :

It’s too early for this type of... thing. What is it you were doing?

JOHN _sighs_

I can’t believe you don’t even know. I s'pose I didn’t tell you. You never ask.

BEAT

BEAT

HALF-BEAT

HOLMES

Are you truly unhappy about this? John, I can make more of an effort to ask. 

JOHN

No, I… 

_Lapses into silence, rubs face_

I want a drink. Why do I want a drink? It’s mid-morning.

HOLMES _gently lays a hand on John’s shoulder_

BEAT

HOLMES sighs.

John. It’s...okay. Not to be okay, I mean. How can I… Anything. What do you need? Not what you want. What you need.

JOHN _throws himself back into the sofa, sounds a bit puke-y_

Sherlock, I don’t know. I don’t. I want liquor. I need… Jesus. Don’t ask me that right now.

HOLMES _stills, perplexed. His hand is stiff on John's shoulder._

HOLMES _opens and closes his mouth. Finally, squinting:_

Should I… remove my hand?

JOHN _laughs, jarringly loud._ _Some tension was released, but the situation is still complicated and this is palpable. Sherlock lifts his hand off, then doubles down and pulls John into a sideways hug. It is visibly awkward, but they both lean into each other._

HOLMES _, whispers, may be unintelligible_

"The sweetest sorrows/

Are yet to come/

Do not borrow back/

The days that are done."

JOHN, _eyes closed, with a faint smile:_

Who wrote that?

HOLMES, _staring avidly at John's peaceful face_

Myself, of course.

JOHN _smiles wider. This is a bit of an inside joke. Sherlock never quotes others if he can avoid it. This leads to many accidentally (?) paraphrased pop song lyrics, and JOHN makes a game of guessing the source.  
_ _Sherlock himself often doesn’t remember. It amuses them both, especially when Sherlock truly thought he was being original._


	2. Ruminations 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shredded   
> Tape to keep myself aligned  
> Staring through the space  
> At the void that lies behind

Sherlock closed his eyes again, hoping to see his memory palace as it had been for years, a refuge of stillness and humming calculation. His eyes were shut. His mind’s eye turned inwards as he summoned the Atrium. Mechanical groaning, moving parts. Again. What was happening?

Suddenly he saw it for what it was: video game obstacles, such as those Mario games John liked so much. The mind palace had come alive after all this time, just like his sock index, and was now resisting his use. Why could nothing of his be simple or peaceful? John was the same. An epic partnership, a bond to surpass all bonds, all the things under the sun to discuss, and they hadn’t so much as texted in three days. Downright mysterious, as well as infuriating.

Sherlock was convinced the video game thing was John’s fault, besides, but the man was too preoccupied with his incipient move to be interested in something so trivial as the contents of Sherlock’s head. It had been two months since Sherlock had thrown himself to John’s feet, pleading for him to end the silence he’d endured since Mary’s death. 

John wasn’t even moving back in with Sherlock, or anywhere nearby- he had found a little flat a few streets over from Harry. There was no animosity between him and Sherlock, but no affection either. And here was Sherlock without reliable access to his memories. 

How was he supposed to review the facts, find out what he did wrong, and fix it?

Granted, he knew what he had done wrong. Everyone knew what he had done wrong. But the story _everyone knew_ had to be wrong, because if he had really been so terrible, John would never be talking to him at all.   
  
He needed to review, but he didn’t have the patience to jump through his own brain’s hoops. He took a deep breath, preparing to jump in anyway, when his phone began blaring its terrible ringtone. He had been keeping its ringer on since he and John had re-opened communication, just in case he should call, but there was no way that would truly happen.   
  
Sherlock was trying to become the optimistic type. 

Sure enough, it was Lestrade. Greg. Sherlock was also trying to become more “friendly”. 

He had a case for Sherlock, a high-profile racial murder, but Sherlock’s first instinct was to turn it down. He was in no condition to work. Unless work would be just the thing? 

No. He could now see that his work had been a mistress more than a wife. Though the metaphor was saccharine, it was appropriate: he had a real partnership to fix. Somehow. 

He let “Greg” know that he would let Mycroft know in no uncertain terms that it was time for him to take an interest in these matters, and hung up. If he had to become a portly be-mustached plumber in order to get to his emotion cellars, he was going to do it if it killed him.   
  
_It just might,_ he thought to himself. _I remember what happened with the sock index._ _  
_ “I was sorting socks for days,” he muttered. “Never again.”

_Holmes glances at his bedroom door uncertainly. Speaking ill of the sock index, in any form, was never wise. What would diving into his mind yield, in these uncertain times?_


	3. In the Blue Room of the Cellar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The jangling notes of our discord push us apart as they clash.   
> Falling, despairing; disparate parts of what should be whole: into the hole filled with crumbling ash.

More than anything, he missed Rose. It was strange to say, but he’d formed an attachment to the child. He had never wanted to be a parent, and truth be told still didn’t, but he was… Intensely interested in her development.  
  
_Besides,_ he thought to himself, it could be useful for her to have some limited continued interaction with Sherlock. If anything, he was a good teaching tool. She could be anything she wanted to be, with his resources. And he would give anything for her to have a good life. It was such a strange feeling to have, after so little time with the child, and so little experience with children overall. _I suppose this is what they call imprinting,_ he concluded in his reflection. It was surprising that this had been the first thought bubble to process, but he supposed that, in this world of emotion, concern for children made sense. 

He was floating. The bubbles were everywhere. He’d finally made it down into the cellars, only to find 724 thought bubbles filling the Blue room. How could he possibly visit them all?

Sherlock tried to touch the bubble that held John’s eyes, a comforting memory he’d visited many times, but was rebuffed. The memory was too painful, not knowing when he’d be graced with the sight again. He tried again.  
**  
“Gosh, your eyes, like stars in the night/**

**Of alien landscapes, glowing in the skies/**

**I can’t help myself, a moth to your flame/**

**I die a dozen deaths just to try it all the same”**  
  


The words poured out from him as they always did, guided by his lurking behemoth of a subconsciousness. 

_That’s enough of that,_ he Spoke to It. _Move On._

But what could captivate him more in this room than John’s eyes? 

**_We know what is better than John’s Eyes,_ **floated up from the depths. Drugs, of course. But Mycroft would send him to the center again if he was caught. He could find a dealer and a suitable alleyway anywhere, of course. And besides, the real John had been drinking himself into an early grave and was in no position to judge. 

His construct of John’s face, a stone bust in the atrium, was frowning at the suggestion. Best not.

All of a sudden, his chest was tight. His ribcage was rebelling. No John? No drugs? That was one equation that simply didn’t work. It didn’t have to be heroin, or even cocaine. It could be marijuana, it could be kratom, it could be coffee, it could be…

Nicotine. Of course. He had tried to do this all on his own- of course he was running into obstacles. He needed to treat this like a case. How many patches? Was this smoke-worthy? Even Mycroft wouldn’t begrudge him a cigarette about this.


	4. End of the Blue Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fresh-baked meat- red like the passage from me to you  
> Chafed from the current. A heavy flow moving like new  
> & Improved. Embraced by the torrent and dreaming of blue  
> I fall  
>  Fall  
>  Fall  
> Through cotton-balls and dew

The cigarette cleared his mind enough that he could see one mistake he had made: hoping for reconciliation. If he wanted to fix this, paradoxically, he was going to have to let go of the idea of it being broken or fixed. What was the current situation? Sherlock got out a piece of paper and began to write, trying to be as free-flowing and honest as possible

**“What I did “wrong” according to Construct-John:**

First blow: Leaving.   
Second blow: Leaving with no communication.

Third blow: Interfering with John after the return, ignoring his readiness in my impatience to have things back the way they used to be.”

 _None of these items is fixable,_ Sherlock thought with frustration. _None of them point to a way forward that isn’t “giving him space”. That was Greg’s advice. Waste of time. I know I can’t do that, not with John, not with this amount of strain._

Of course, giving him space might be the only possible course of action, especially given all that had happened between them around Mary. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waitingwaitingwaiting waiting waiting. 

_That’s enough of that. Not an option for me. Unless I could add “being patient” to my list of virtues. Three virtues… Is too many virtues. Ditch kindness or optimism…_

At that, Sherlock’s stomach grumbled. He hadn’t eaten anything but chocolate covered coffee beans in hours. He took that to mean he couldn’t make any decisions at the moment. He bid farewell to the Blue Room and ventured back to the atrium. The head of John’s bust had exploded in the meantime. Fascinated but spooked, Sherlock opened his eyes. 

Hours really had passed. It was now evening. Supposing it was time to “take care of himself”, Sherlock sat down at the desk and began to rosin his bow.


	5. Molly and Jim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flowers blooming from my eyes   
> Gold stars gleam on my thighs  
> Sad songs on the radio  
> Clouds move on stereo
> 
> Walking to the beat  
> Feeling disconnected from my feet  
> There’s this buzzing in my brain  
> Like I’m jumping in the rain

Molly had forgotten her pills today. It echoed through her mind all through work, _I forgot my pills today_. It wasn’t too serious of a lapse, as the drug had been stable in her system for a long time, but still- there was a note of jagged discord everywhere. It was unclear to her if the stress was a medical lack of her antidepressant or simply the nocebo effect of forgetting.

In any case, this was the day she met Jim. 

-

**Grey.** This was a grey day. Moriarty was tired. He wanted to rest in some cozy spot and be a bored kitten. Jim quite liked these days- the only days of peace in an otherwise hectic life. He loved his life, but sometimes… 

**Everyone needs a little escapism,** drifted up from the depths of his mind. He was lounging outside the café opposite Bart’s, chain smoking cigarettes and planning escape routes, when the idea struck. He had seen that woman with Holmes before, through the surveillance network. 

In the morgue. 

**She looks comfortable.**

_Yes, yes she does, lizard brain. Thank you for that._

He took another drag and then, clarity. _No, really! Thank you for that! Ohhh._ _  
_ _  
_ He made to flick away the half-smoked cigarette but it seemed to stick to his fingers. He was getting carelessly addicted to the things. He settled back into his corner with a sigh, and enjoyed his last few puffs shamelessly.

-

_This sandwich is really good,_ Molly thought. _Focus on that._

She had surreptitiously watched Youtube videos about the power of “Now” all through her morning autopsy. Her colleagues were truly the hard science type and although they pretended to be open-minded, Molly felt sure they judged her when she put anything remotely “new-age” on the shared telly.

_Remember the sandwich. Pickles._ **_Yes,  
_ **

JIM

Excuse me, may I sit with you?

MOLLY HOOPER

I’m sorry, what?

JIM _tilting head, higher pitched_

If I may… sit with you.

MOLLY HOOPER _looking unsettled, cabbage and pickles falling out of her sandwich._

Ehhm…

JIM _contrite_

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you!

MOLLY

Oh, no! I’m sorry, I’m just being silly and dithering. Of course, have a seat.

MOLLY _pushes out the chair opposite hers with a foot, but overshoots and tips the chair over._

MORIARTY _catches the chair lightly, then smoothly pulls it out and sits, in one fluid motion. He might be a house-cat today for this woman. What timing!_

_"I love my life,"_ he thought again, for the third time that day. 

-

Molly was having an amazing time. Ever since she had met Jim, it seemed she had never-ending self confidence. For a man like that to be interested in her, and for things she herself appreciated about Life As Molly Hooper, felt wonderful. 

She knew there was more to him, as there was more to her, but they didn’t discuss work. All they seemed to do was lay around in her flat every other evening and knit, or play with Toby, or cook. Jim was a fantastic cook. 

They hadn’t actually had sex, though they’d slept together. She suspected he was asexual and performing sexuality. She sighed out loud at this. 

Her nights alone had gotten rarer but this was one of them. She’d been trying to focus on a Deepak Chopra book unsuccessfully for the past ten minutes, but all she seemed to do these days was think about Jim. Without concrete background information, her mind was left to wonder and extrapolate, and this was something her mind did very well. She had already crafted him a few backstories. He was almost certainly a super-spy, or maybe an assassin. 

Sometimes she let herself feel that narrative when Jim was at his most unguarded and defenseless, napping in her living room, maybe holding her cat’s paw if Toby was in the mood.

**_My home is so welcoming that an assassin is napping in_** **_it_** , had popped into her head then.

It was a good feeling.

-

He desperately wanted to fuck her. He knew she thought he was asexual, and probably gay at that, and that’s what he had wanted her to think in the beginning.

But things had changed. Jim’s little shake-down of Sherlock’s pet mortician had gotten out of hand. Moriarty was visiting her now, too- not that they were actually split personalities, but Moriarty was the work-self. Her flat was rapidly becoming his pussy-cat bolt-hole, and Ms. Hooper was a prime scratching post. 

_And Toby,_ he thought wistfully from his rooftop perch. _I might be in love._

**This is just like the cigarettes. Stop it, stop her stop-her stop stop-her**

_And there’s the rub._ He rubbed his eyes, then looked back in the scope. He was doing some surveillance himself tonight, a low-level mark. Jim liked to keep his hand in every part of his business. 

He really was quite a lot like a cat. He wasn’t sure Little Miss Hooper would feel so safe with him if he were to let his claws out, and sex without claws was certainly _not his area_. 

_Molly in chains…_ He sighed again, gustily. Would it ever happen? The tangled web he was weaving could not be compromised. The Work came first, always had to do. If he truly made her his plaything, he wouldn’t tolerate sharing with _Sherlock_ of all people. Ever since they had been introduced in the mortuary research lab, Moriarty’s professional opinion of Holmes had taken a nosedive. Jim had been confident he wouldn’t be noticed, but that all had gone quite so smoothly was disappointing. 

He also might have been biased by the blatant disregard Holmes had shown _his…_ Ms. Hooper.

Jim went to toss his remaining cigarettes off the edge of the rooftop, but then remembered how foolish that would be in active surveillance. He also remembered he couldn’t smoke anyway. 

So he shot the mark. He had been waiting until the spouse left for the weekend, as a courtesy to an ex-business associate, but he needed dopamine _now_. 

_One less item on the to-do list. What a relief._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a multi-pairing fic, and I can't say for sure which pairing will end up being the dominant one.


	6. Ruminations 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who are we outside our shared daydream?  
> I can’t be constructive. Disruptive. I’m addictive and my feelings are subtractive.  
> They want the rupture, I want the rapture.  
> Effectively conveying what you mean to me  
> A question mark

**Why had Jim Moriarty killed himself?**

While Sherlock couldn’t stop thinking about John, Holmes couldn’t let go of Moriarty. 

It was strange to be so evenly divided between obsessions. They had always come one at a time, before. 

John was… undefinably critical. But the question of Moriarty’s death hung with urgency, even four years on. Was he dead? How could he not be? How could he be?

In the short time they had made acquaintance, it had seemed a thousand doors and windows were opened. Holmes had been changed irrevocably by the experience, and largely for the better, he could now admit. That it took a sociopathic mass murderer to bring warmth to Sherlock Holmes’ heart had not escaped his appreciation. While he could now understand the concern of his loved ones, his cherished few friends, there was an ember of satisfied ego that would not be extinguished. 

There was also the intense professional admiration he had tried in vain to suppress, even as he found himself horrified by the ends of Moriarty’s elegant means.

That suppression was the root of Holmes’ inability to suss out the motive behind Moriarty’s suicide, he was sure. In order to understand Moriarty, Jim, Sherlock was going to have to let his emotions get involved.

The work he had done excavating the cellars to date had been yielding incredible progress. He no longer felt the need to text John at all hours, hoping for a response. He knew that people each had their own pace that must be respected. He had heard this before, but now he knew it- working through the cellars had nearly broken him, and he had needed breaks where he’d never known himself to before.

Time. Sherlock's own natural pacing was still a mystery to him. As he had been sitting on his sofa working through today's problem, hours had passed. Would it always take him hours to know truly what he felt?

Jim’s timing had been impeccable. Over and over, through all the mini-cases, time had been the crux. His suicide had seemed impulsive, brought upon by madness, but how could a man so calculated and ruthless succumb that way?

Originally, Holmes hadn’t questioned it, assuming foolishly that Moriarty had been as affected by Sherlock Holmes as he had been by Jim Moriarty, but he could now see the assumption.

At no point had Jim shown any signs of strain, except on the rooftop. What had happened behind the scenes?

It was a shame Sherlock and Mycroft had killed or spooked the majority of Moriarty’s operation. Who still remained to be investigated? With very few leads and the comparative age of the case, as well as the haze of personal entanglement, Holmes was both buzzing with curiosity and completely adrift. 

He needed to visit the Red room.

**In the Red room**

There were so many reasons to kill oneself. Sherlock only _wanted_ to believe that Moriarty was alive, for selfish reasons. This was no lead to work with. He had truly been clouded by sentiment. More and more, he realized he always had been, but without knowing, which is the worst kind of ignorance. The true question was: who had Jim Moriarty been?

Sherlock left the Red room, grateful and unsettled as he always was, and made his way to the Portrait Gallery. Ten portraits had been dedicated to Moriarty, a number only surpassed by the blank canvases he now knew were most likely Eurus’. He had always thought they were for himself, that he was somehow a blank slate in a way no one else seemed to be.

The portraits showed a man unhinged, demented and murderous, foaming at the mouth. Rabid.

But that hadn’t at all been the reality of the man in person. How could there be such a disconnect? How could he have let his vision be so clouded with fear?

He quickly hopped to the Yellow room to view the accomplishments of his life, so many that they were each only grains of sand in a golden desert. He felt better. He -

-

They were fucking, it was so good, they were fucking, it was so good. His hands were tangled and pulling and clawing at her scalp while he railed her, spread-eagled and tied in stirrups in one of his safe houses. He was going to, he was going to, he-

-

Why had his brain thrown up a vision of Molly and Jim copulating- oh. Molly. Of course, of course. He needed to speak to Molly about Jim. But Molly wasn’t speaking to him right now, and most certainly wouldn’t want to share the tender moments she’d had with a monster with the man who’d unmasked him. Empathy could be… irritating. Stall-out again. 

**2-1 for the mind palace**


	7. Interlude: On Narcissism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything is upside down and in reverse it seems.   
>  Locked away from my waking mind, which is a poor substitute.  
> Excitement is rare.  
> Failure seems everywhere in the absence of Truth.  
> My eyes are dulled, foggy  
> In the loss of my dignity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is relevant for several of these characters, and I feel at this point Sherlock would be researching his own flaws avidly, as well as those of his acquaintances when he'd reached that point in his development.

**Interlude: On Narcissim**

**Food for Thought: Narcissist + Narcissist relationship, & Non-narc+Narc**

“ If being abandoned and discarded are your greatest fears (childhood programs of unavailable parents), the narcissist may act as if he or she doesn’t care when you’re leaving. This will cause you to fall into a heap  _ “I can’t believe I mean nothing to you!” _ , start contacting the narcissist for some show of ‘care’, and thus go back for more abuse.”

“If your blind spot is ‘empathy and guilt’ (childhood programs of being conditioned to feel that you are only lovable when you are self-sacrificing yourself to what a parent wants you to do, or the inner childhood program of ‘If I help heal you I will be safer’) the narcissist may cry and plead and declare  _ “I love you, I know I need help, please don’t desert me. If you love you won’t abandon me! _ ”

**Overcoming Narcissism, or At Least Compensating For It**

“There may be two subtypes of NPD: grandiose or overt narcissism and vulnerable or covert narcissism: “People with the former subtype may appear arrogant, pretentious, dominant, self-assured, exhibitionist, or aggressive, whereas people with the latter may present as overly sensitive, insecure, defensive and anxious about an underlying sense of shame and inadequacy.”

“ **Mentalization-based therapy (MBT)** is a psychodynamic treatment that helps individuals with NPD to accurately self-reflect and reflect on others’ thoughts and feelings—and to see the connection between these mental states and behavior.”

  
“ **Change promoting** includes showing individuals “that their ideas do not necessarily mirror reality and that situations can be understood differently when seen from another angle,” along with building new and healthier ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving (according to the previously mentioned article).”


	8. Sex Scenes via poetry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poetry for the sex scenes in the fic pairings as they would be at this point in the emotional narrative

**Sherlock has a sex dream about Moriarty that takes an existential turn**

Soft snow slithers

Across the icy ground

Small shifting shivers

Don’t make a single sound

Even amidst this dread nightmare landscape, this difficult upside-down negative world, There is beauty.

I swim in a sea of molasses. I see that I cannot see. 

This tedium could be the death of me.

Life is Composition greater than Decomp

Death is Decomp greater than Comp.

I am alive.

**Molly Hooper and Jim Moriarty**

**  
  
MOLLY**

Like a bullet train I come

Barreling down the rails

Towards you

Digging in my nails

Bright behind my eyes suns sail in circles

Set in purples

Pleasure has my blood curdled

Hurtles to my brain making my love insane

Tentacular heart reaching out through the strain

To wrap around your slain frame

Stained from our love games

Loving you is nothing tame

  
  
**MORIARTY**

Peut-être au paradis mais surtout vers l'enfer

Mon plaisir parasite se fait de ton calvaire

Tes yeux de biche me font tellement d'effet

Les sortir de ta tête décorerait mon parquet

Fait taire ta langue- signale ce qui plaît

Parfaire ton déhanchement et rester muet

C'est ainsi que l'on s'aime, dans ces moments d'amertume

Et de sucre, et de sel, et de chair que l'on hume

  
  
**John daydreams about using and controlling Sherlock as he feels he has been used**

Fog, roiling like boiling soup

More, please, coiling, teasing you

  
  
**Sherlock wakes up in the morning  
  
**

Lo; the changes go

Forth in the morning glow

This night, it seems, tears away from my dreams

And leaves me full of rope. Hope tangled, darling, grope:

Seek to track it with an isotope

And rotoscope the trope of life to bring it back to dope

Sherlock woke up feeling refreshed, at odds with his state throughout the night. He lifted the sheets and sighed as he obtained visual confirmation for the wetness he felt in his underwear. What was wrong with him? Why was he having these sexual images?

On second thought, he knew perfectly why. It was those dastardly emotion cellars. Unlocking them must have unlocked his long-dormant libido. Sherlock could only be grateful the sex dream had not been about John- such a thing would only have clouded his vision of the truth even more.

Sadly, he needed the emotion cellars to remain functional. He saw now what his years masquerading as a sociopath had cost him. This meant he had to suppress his libido manually, and that meant drugs.

-

Mycroft felt a chill go down his spine as he sat in his monogrammed armchair at the club. Something was wrong with the flow. Sighing, he put down his paddle and picked up his phone.

“MMM!”, came the expected complaint. Shushing the gimp, Mycroft exited the room at a brisk clip, mindful of his girth as he cut between participants. There had been a text on his phone from the team at Baker Street reporting "strange behaviour".

  
  



	9. Lestrade

Lestrade was in a mood. He had received Mycroft Holmes’ communiqué just under an hour ago, and was now pulling up to the Baker street place. All lights were out. It was after eleven at night. 

He wasn’t busting in there with only a text to go on. 

**Ext. rainy alleyway**

_ A red ember flicks to life, revealing  _ HOLMES  _ in a dusty leather jacket _

HOLMES

Lestrade. Sorry- Greg.

LESTRADE  _ strides forward and grabs the cigarette out of Sherlock’s hand, tossing it to the ground _

What in the hell are you doing, Sherlock?

HOLMES

I, uh-

LESTRADE

D’you have any idea how hard it’s been? Give me one of those.

SHERLOCK

I- Greg, Lestrade, no, you know I can’t-

LESTRADE

Bollocks you can’t! Give them!

_ The two tussle for a moment until a throat is cleared behind them and  _ MYCROFT HOLMES  _ steps out of the shadows _

MYCROFT

That’ll be quite enough of that, I’m afraid. This is much more serious than cigarettes. 

_ Gestures with umbrella to Sherlock’s jacket _

Is it not, brother mine?

_ Sherlock glances to the side frustratedly, then turns out his pockets. Omega suppressants. _


	10. What happened after the previous thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing cosmically assigned  
> Just wandering through my days  
> With the noise that fills my mind  
> Such a restless haze confined

Sherlock vomited into the bin for the second time that morning. There would be more to come, he knew. If this was what it was like to be pregnant, he wanted none of it. It was bad enough to take these pills.

In the end, while disapproving of his methods, Lestrade and Mycroft had understood his decision. 

-

**Ext. alleyway NIGHT - last week**

_Sherlock sits on a bin while Lestrade and Mycroft continue to stand_

SHERLOCK

...I simply must, you understand. I cannot compromise my vision on these matters, not when it is so clouded in the first place.

LESTRADE

I have to say, Sherlock. I can’t comment on the wisdom of what you did, in fact- yes I can. That was moronic, and you know John would have cut into you for it. But I understand your perspective, and with regards to drugs, this is probably the most… Enlightened decision I’ve ever seen from you.

_Mycroft’s face twists in agreement as he lights another cigarette. The ground is fairly littered with butts by this point._

_Sherlock purses his lips as if he is about to object, but then sighs again. Even he can’t debate that point._

MYCROFT, on the exhale

In any case, Sherlock, I did bring these.

_Mycroft takes his right hand out of his pocket, clasping a few pill bags between his index and middle finger. He hands them to Sherlock gingerly._

_Greg points in shock, eyes wide, but says nothing._

MYCROFT

You remember what these did to you, of course.

SHERLOCK _solemnly, but with a rueful smile. Mycroft had only wanted to check in with him. His brother would never change._

I do. 

MYCROFT

Well then. I believe I must be off. Care for a ride, Inspector?

LESTRADE, visibly embarrassed

Yes, I… That would be appreciated.

SHERLOCK _wide-eyed, shocked back to normalcy_

Not you two! Greg, no!

GREG _red-faced, blustering, but recovering_

Sherlock! Nothing is… Sod it. Sherlock, I’ll have you notice you called me Greg right there and meant it. It this is what it takes…

_Greg shrugs and smirks_

MYCROFT _snippily_

If you’ve quite finished dismissing our relationship, Gregory, I have a car waiting.

_Sherlock watches smugly as Greg sheepishly heads off with Mycroft. The camera pans down to a close-up of his hand clenched around the pills. It is shaking slightly._

_-_   
  


The batman logo swirls and we switch to an entirely new perspective.

**_Irene reclines on her divan for the photographer, a widely smiling American woman. Her mind is a million miles away from the affairs of men, especially men in London. Her singing career is taking off. She's married._ **

_Sigh_

She was lying to herself again. But the fiction was who she was: she acted above everything, except her wife and her own wants.

Her needs could get stuffed. Not that she needed anything she had left behind, but she missed Britain with a fierce ache. There had been many reasons she’d left the US in the first place, not the least of which were the oddly wide smiles.

A shallow gripe, admittedly, but then- she was a shallow person, and she liked it that way. 

Ever since her dalliance with Jim and the Holmes brothers, Irene had increasingly been appreciating the comfort of her own life and self.

She'd seen firsthand just how uncomfortable it could be to actively live to the fullest of one’s mental capacities. She wanted no part of it. Her “regular” life was exciting enough without the cloak-and-dagger derring-do she’d been dabbling in. 

Kate had been deliriously happy, of course. The living room incident had spooked her enough, and that had only been the beginning. The move to the US had felt like a blessing.

They were just back from their Tennessee honeymoon, in point of fact. But still. The smiles were wrong, here.

And she was losing her carefully cultivated accent. And she was getting terribly, terribly bored.

While she was perfectly happy never to get involved with out-rightly-illegal activities again, it had been a good outlet. And while she was perfectly happy never to actually perform sexual acts with another, it had also been a good outlet. 

She felt like she was in early retirement. Should she take up painting? Landscapes, or dull little dogs? 

  
IRENE _lets out a sigh as she changes poses again, this time a sultry close-up of her mouth. She pictures what she always seems to, a welt on Sherlock Holmes’ cheek, and smirks._


	11. Ruminations 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts no thoughts and stop don’t stop  
> Half-cocked overwrought don’t run just walk  
> Falling down the rabbit holes  
> Time has stopped its rabid pull

Mycroft hadn’t seem to know about the contents of Sherlock’s other pocket that night. _Amanita muscaria_ was a lesser-used psychedelic mushroom, known to induce a feeling of shifting scales.

If he wanted to delve deep into his mind cellars, he was going to have to become “small”. He would have to abandon his (yes, massive) ego and truly bathe in his own waters. He could not achieve this unassisted. The first component was suppressing his libido- the second was psychedelic drugs. 

With a grimace, he swallowed another sip of the musty tea. It would be worth it, he was sure. And what was a bit more vomit, after the mornings he’d been having?

Oh, hello!

**Orange room (The Atrium)**

_I don’t understand enough about John to have a full mannequin of him here. It’s only this bust. Its facial expression is ever-shifting and largely unknown to me._

**Red room (Knowledge)**

Frustration 

**Insanity room (Composition - Cellars - Dusky Lavender)**

Impatience

**Green room (Music - Cellars - Emotion)**

Beauty - _tears,_

_Empathy - tears_

_Sadness - sucked to Blue room_

**Blue room (Decomposition - Pool)**

Did he really want reconciliation with John?

_Yes_ , his mind responded, but the gut was silent. 

_I see,_ he thought. Did he? Not really. 

How could he not want to be in proximity with John? Someone so truly complementary to himself, in just the ways he had imagined, when he had cared to. Shorter, too. Truly, he had been blessed.

_My heart is not mine to give. I see. Somewhere along the way, I truly fell in love with him. When was it?_

_The hug. At the pool. The pool! I need to visit the Pool._

**The Pool**

A wave of massive sadness hits Sherlock as he steps into the pool, but it is only the ice-cold water.

_Empathy for the plight of humanity, viciously suppressed with razor-sharp pessimistic logic. I see. I… feel, what one might feel, when faced with such a thing._

Sherlock breathes through the feeling, as by now is his habit. He picks up his already-prepared violin and begins to pluck its strings. 

Outside of his partnership with John, did Sherlock want partnership itself?

_Yes,_ his mind responded. And his heart felt sliced open. What were these mixed signals?

Did Sherlock want a partner?

In his mind, he did.

In his gut, his not-yet-fully suppressed libido roiled a clear yes.

That wasn’t his gut.

In his gut, **gut say fuck off.**

Ah. So no news was neutral news. 

And his heart was in pain… because of the situation with John. How predictable. He was only killing time until a reconciliation that may or may not occur, in pain the whole while.

_A true case of “nothing ventured, nothing gained”,_ he thought with an exhale.

-

**Irene had been having unsettling dreams in which she was a teacup poodle.** Her faceless owner put her in a teacup and drank her. She had felt sucked all through the giantess’ digestive tract, but she only remembered the sensation of the esophagus. 

-

**John sat at his computer desk, playing candy crush on his phone.** ****  
**  
**_His mind was blessedly blank, satisfied by the low voice of the game congratulating him on his prowess._

**His mind was agitated, thinking about Sherlock.**

His screen caught the reflection of his own face. He saw himself frowning in concentration. How much deeper were those lines going to get? **He got up to stretch.** John gets up to stretch.

John is an NPC right now. John does not exist. John is… Functioning.

-

**Why had the gut been silent? NOTES**

The heart can be stolen back, for a price. It preys on the mind, wondering what might have been. 

But time is out of order. Things can be “wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey”, as that terrible Dr. Who says. 

_In his quest to understand impatience, Sherlock had found that one strategy for dealing with time oppression was to mentally ignore linearity. Experience things out of order, in the order you choose, but make sure to experience it all. Simply choose the activity that triggers the emotion and then cycle through them all this way, in whichever order you choose._

_Remember that ignoring emotions leads to added pain! Take your sadness, and your bitter pills. - Note from "John"_


	12. The trip concludes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Les mots filent sous ma langue  
> Comme des pieuvres, lisses  
> Jadis, que les tiens sévissent
> 
> Dans mon corps
> 
> Mes intestins se trahissent  
> Révoltés contre le manque de ta chair  
> Nul répit je met ancre ici  
> Danser douceur de nous comme nous étions  
> Hier

He awoke at 7:32 AM in a pile of pillows on the floor, cradling his phone to his face.

 **What is this fresh hell,** screamed his back.

How perfectly useless that all had been. He had a text from John: “Move went well. Settling in.”

No advances could be made with that lead. The investigation was at an impasse without more data. Sadly, Sherlock’s usual method of stalking the data out of someone would be ill-advised in this case. It may lead to broken bones, or even a jail sentence. On those grounds, Mycroft’s hands would be tied, he was sure. Best not. 

  
Best, in fact, to go back to bed, **in a real bed** , and see what his less-altered dreams held. That teacup poodle interlude had been terrifying.

Sherlock was used to dreaming about the figures that populated his mind palace, but that had been the first time he had seemed to share their perspective. Perhaps something of worth had come out of this experiment. Perhaps he should take more mushrooms - **No. Bed,** insisted his gut wisdom, hard-acquired and by now much respected.

_Sigh_


	13. Poetry for Victor Trevor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leaving you  
> Is like the frost  
> Sneaking up on the dew  
> Do you  
> Mean  
> There is nothing more to hew?  
> No shards to carve off a finished statue?

SHERLOCK

So angry. How long can man grieve?    
I’m trapped and ransacked and I can’t breathe. 

I want to be free. Or do I?

What is freedom but the lack of someone to make you feel dumb, be glum

Loneliness wrapped in smug superiority   
  
Pride shouldn’t be the priority. 

-

Proximity. Your nearness makes me doubt your toxicity

Hypocrisy. My feelings are a shout for democracy

That’s a lie. This was undoubtedly a tyranny

Body at odds with what my mind says you mean to me

Haze. Your whole waking life is a phase

A maze that you navigate, hoping that you maturate

Wandering wondering pondering free

What is he to me, as you walk into a tree

Freedom, more like he dumb

More like what he wouldn’t do just to get some

Read ‘em, and weep, or be numb

What you wanna seek I think reeks of meek, son

Tweak your beak, thumb pressed to your cheek

Keep you in a cage, speak to me about your week

You’ll be all the rage, my pet circus freak

Say you want to leave, the fee will be steep

-

VICTOR

Love is not a magic rabbit hopping out a hat

Pop it in then pull it out, the same for every act

Disappearing on a stage, sticking knives through my cage

Sudden rage they’re saying you’re the mage?

A relationship magician, emotional tactician

Watching you to gauge your mood be maximal efficient

The moon’s moods are volatile, crazy like a loon

Adapting to your hazy shit I looked like a buffoon

Sometimes I hate you. You make me feel ill.

Make me feel like Sisyphus sliding down a hill

Rocks fall, everybody dies. 

Knowing you, why am I not surprised

Wise boye, cracking smeyes down to size

Faking all your energy to catch me unapprised

Wrap my neck in thighs then throw me off the side

Off a cliff so I die smiling. Better end than died trying

-

Words fail me when I want to relive the unexpected grace of us

How can I capture the marvelous strangeness of you when its very unknown-ness

Is its own reward?

Familiar yet new. Who built you?

Weathered in all the right places. I am comfy for you

I want to be your favourite shoes

You walk barefoot, give me the blues

How come everything I do

Nothing still impresses you

Why you walk and talk and talk

Like there’s no-one There to shock

Like we never shared a thought

Like I’m one you shot a lot

Guess it’s done, you feel the sun

No need for me, you’re warm and fun

I’ll let you leave for now til dusk

I’ll just rot from now to dust


	14. Drugs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’m sitting in my living room  
> Feeling that my time is soon  
> Knowing that the voice has been a liar  
> I cannot join the choir

He had dreamed about Victor Trevor. That hadn’t happened in years. Perhaps he was reaching the bottom of his cellars at last. 

Of course, there was his now-evident pattern of codependency, and this was no doubt tied to his addictive personality, which was tied to his drug use, which opened… Oh, roughly 50 cupboards along the cellar walls, each more shadowy than the last.

_Lovely,_ he spat to himself. _I had been doing so well. Must I truly fight the Leviathan?_

That was a good question, in point of fact. So far, all obstacles had been overcome smoothly simply by not resisting their accompanying emotions. Perhaps this might be the same?

Another question was how the omega suppressants would be affecting his judgement, even as they neutralized his libidinous motivations. This he could only imagine from past experience.

_When he was young, Sherlock had been a very devoted scholar._

_When the hormones of puberty had kicked in, it had been his worst nightmare. He had begged his parents for an alternative. Any designation would be terrible, but what he had been learning in his biology class was simply disgusting. To be an omega could simply not be allowed to happen. The distractibility alone was intolerable._

_Concerned, his parents had brought him to therapist upon specialist, and ultimately concluded that suppressants would be the way forward. Their side effects, however, were another story._

-

The suppressants worked on all his senses, not just his hormones. He was deadened, dulled. 

He was sure that in this context, that might be a good thing. He was dealing with a great deal of heavy material, after all. 

Of course, these deadened senses were the reason Sherlock had first reached to heavy drugs.

It had taken conceiving of then locking down the cellars to escape his addictions to drugs and to his own libido.

**Sherlock’s first sober rave, around a decade ago**

Hello this is circle man, twisting round the ceiling fan

Drifting sound across my beard, soft like only kitties can

Be. It’s time to pee. Going to the bathroom, whee whee

Back to me. This is where the action speaks. 

Let me feel it pound, let me feel it grind

Let me feel my pulse until I nearly lose my mind

Binding me to the floor as my roots descend

Winding through my core as the speakers bend

  
(Chorus)

Bubblegum dreams and candy flipped screams

Memories of the darker days I want to get clean

I’m raving, craving, it might be okay

Dancing with my twelve step, who can say

Blow me a kiss, Molly, tell me what to do

You know I did regret when I said goodbye to you

No to the risk, though you know that I will rue

The dark dark day that our business did conclude

Acid rain, green trees, shrooms

A whole growing forest of shit I cannot do

But the feeling is electric, the people are eclectic

By any other metric I’m a happy honeydew

The beat is so- and I’m in the flow

Dancing till my toes can’t take no mo’

The beat is so- and I’m in the flow

Braving my first sober rave and it is gold

Goodnight, this was circle man

Twisted round your ceiling fan

Drifting sound across your ears

Reminding you that yes you can

**-**

**Now** , years later, would he be able to do it again, but healthily? 

_Optimism, remember optimism._

He could almost certainly do this. Victor had been the one to introduce him to the scene, and he had already processed most of him. 

**Ketamine (Yellow room)**

He was counting the grains of sand dizzily, giggling every time he stumbled.

**Alcohol (Green room)**

He was in a pub, listening to a long-winded explanation of football from Greg, and not minding at all.

**Marijuana (Insanity room, cellars)**

He was confronting the dragon, demanding its contents. But the dragon kept sucking him in, time after time, down the esophagus and out into an oubliette, where Sherlock inevitably remembered some detail he had missed that invalidated his question.

**Cocaine + Alcohol (Yellow + red room)**

He was playing the violin, marvelously, stupendously. How could John not want to be around someone so talented, that shone so brightly? Perhaps he was jealous...

**Morphine (Red room)**

Complete floating comfort. There was nothing outside this moment. 

JOHN _hung suspended in nothingness, only a faint burning in his shoulder a reminder he was still alive. He had survived. God had heard his plea._

IRENE _sat in her dressing room before a show, meditating. She was starlight, moonlight, dancing across water._

JIM _imagined himself as a woman breastfeeding for the first time. Exhilarated exhausted bliss._

MOLLY _was pinned under Jim, his mouth at the nape of her neck as he lay spent within her._

MRS. HUDSON _was baking cookies for the couple next door, flying high on her soothers, hips moving fluidly to the radio._

MYCROFT _was at the club and hadn't heard a spoken word in hours._ _The repetitive smack of wood on flesh had drawn him into total focused rapture. Would Greg ever come here with him?_

**MDMA (Outside, new figures)**

Sherlock went to a tea shop and targeted the most interesting individual for conversation. He had a surprisingly pleasant couple of hours. It was true that his small circle of friends could, conceivably, largen; if he kept working on the cellars as he was.

**LSD (Chessboard)**

The White Queen was menacing one of his Knights. 

**Mushrooms (Insanity room, cellars, Blue room)**

Sherlock did have enough for a second dose, but the morning’s vomiting had been quite enough for him for now.

**Nitrous Oxide + LSD (Chessboard, accelerated)**

The chessboard is only a snapshot metaphor for the constant interplay of white and black forces that make up his particular shade of grey, the colour of ash. 

The white queen was menacing one of his knights. Which one? And who was the white queen in this context?

His questions had been so twisted by his trips through the oubliettes that the situation itself was unclear. John did not want to talk to him; neither did Molly. But Lestrade and Mycroft and he had shared quite the companionable evening the other night. All in all, his life was not a disaster. Why the worry? He had turned down the case for this. For what?

The real problem was perhaps the intensity of the downspirals he experienced with regards to John’s avoidance. But how to modulate his own intensity? He had promised himself he would never compromise his identity again, not after the mess of his early twenties.  
  
But was his intensity truly linked to his identity?

A wave of **yes** overtook his body. 

_I did suspect as much_ , he replied wryly. Nevertheless, he had forgotten two drugs: Caffeine and Nicotine. These would no doubt change his bottom line. What else had he forgotten?  
  
Absently, he moved in support of another of his gambits, letting the Queen take his knight. He didn't need it anyway.


	15. There's something about Mary

He was going to need all the caffeine and nicotine he could handle if he was to confront Mary's spectre. He had been doing well avoiding her so far, but she could wait no longer.

It wasn’t only Mary herself. That had been relatively unproblematic. It had been Mary+John, and Mary+Sherlock, and Mary+ who knew the amount of shadowy organizations. Mary’s relationships were what needed to be examined to understand what was under her cotton candy surface.

Almost everyone liked Mary. Nobody knew Mary. 

It could be considered similar by contrast to the way everyone knew Sherlock but very few people liked him. They were two sides to the same coin. In a perfect romantic narrative, from John’s perspective, they should have been fused into one. 

But in reality, they were two. John had made his choice clear; he’d preferred Mary. He’d married Mary. Sherlock had not been in a position to give John the traditional comforts of a romantic relationship, and their partnership had suffered for it. 

Had Sherlock understood that he could have brought John along with him, had he not seen John as a figure to be protected at all costs, even to his own life…

But then, Mary had one-upped him there as well: she truly had given her life for John, and for their baby. Rose. 

Mary. All roads lead to her, even as they swooped widely in avoidance. 

She was lies wrapped in softness wrapped around a diamond core. Who had she really been? She had loved John, and she had been honourable in death. 

And she had liked Sherlock, though he himself had been functioning largely on insecurity-fueled self-correction. Perhaps she had recognized herself in him as well. The life of a spy was fraught with existentialism, after all. Was Sherlock a reminder of Mary to John? Had John seen their similarities and, after Mary’s death, decided to cut clean of both of their memories?

Mary had lied to John, and betrayed him several times. While this was understandable to Sherlock, perhaps the intrigue had been too much for him. When the Work got personal, John had a history of storming out. That was why Sherlock hadn’t brought him along when he left to annihilate Moriarty’s web.

He stood by that decision, in hindsight. So far, Sherlock had seen that event as the root of all their troubles, but if it had been correct- it changed many things.

The question of whether John was actually Sherlock’s ideal partner was raised once again.

If he wasn’t able to keep his cool when faced with the insanity of Sherlock’s life, how could he be relied upon? If his reaction to tragedy was to isolate himself rather than to re-group and plan, again, how could he be relied on?

Did Sherlock want a companion or a partner? If it was only as simple as a companion, John was the choice.

But if it was full partnership… 

In many ways, Moriarty had been more suitable, and to partner up with Moriarty would have been a disaster.

What did this say about him? What did this say about him and John?

He needed more nicotine. Sherlock opted for the pipe this time. He needed to contemplate.

He did not want his life to intensify. But then, he did not want his life to settle down, either. He enjoyed the idea of his life the way it was, with its balance of cases and quiet times.

He wanted an adventure partner, and a domestic partner.

If he were to attempt to replace John temporarily, in order to give him the space he needed, how would that go?

He needed to text Molly. Perhaps tackling Greg’s case together would help mend the gap between them.

Molly was busy moving. What was it with people and moving? Sherlock would leave 221b Baker street when he retired, it was as simple as that. Not everyone could have a Ms. Hudson up their sleeve, he supposed. _Janine,_ his mind whispered. She had made an excellent partner through the whole Magnussen kerfuffle. Would she work with him?

He sent her a text.

SHERLOCK

Would you be amenable to working a case with me? High profile, could make for headlines. -SH

Shockingly, she answered right away. The answer was, however, utterly un-shocking.

JANINE

Pay me. -JH

Such was the cost of good help nowadays, he supposed.

SHERLOCK

What do you want? -SH

JANINE

Just kidding. I’m retired and happy about it, Sherlock. Thanks for the validation though! Cheers xx -JH

He had no desire to work a case without a partner. He knew now that his perspective was inescapably biased, and so the only way to approach Truth would be to stack perspectives with figures. He needed to populate his mind palace with far more figures. And not just figures he liked; figures he disagreed with. 

MAGNUSSEN

The locked box opened with a bang. All the rage, frustration, and powerless desperation he had felt when he’d shot that gun, when he’d sat on that airstrip, came to life inside him. 

That man had driven him to that point. But hadn’t he driven himself? He’d let himself be enraged, and he’d known perfectly well that by shooting him, he was letting his own life go. Why had he done that? In the place of contemplation he was in, he couldn’t conceive of doing harm to his own life. He needed to go deeper, to the deepest recesses of his self-loathing.

Perhaps it wasn’t self-loathing, but a craving for the release of death. Not borne of angst, but simply of the rigid demands of his life. A fatigue deeply buried, repressed under his need to be as high-functioning as possible. He may not be a sociopath, but Sherlock knew he was different, and with many disabilities to accompany his extreme abilities.

Short-tempered, demanding while spitefully rejecting others’ demands. Rude. Messy.

He could now admit to the fact that, inside, he was a mess. But he also knew that everyone was. Perhaps his own perspective did suffice to function? Perhaps he did not require a partner at all.

Sherlock stared at his phone on the arm of the sofa. Take the case, or not? Mycroft had been no help on the subject, and he knew Greg was flummoxed. _J_ _ohn_. How could he work without John?

If he could flesh out his bust into a full-fledged figure, he wouldn’t need the real John. He could give the real John all the space and time he needed.

He would need to revisit their memories together, and look at all the signs he had missed, all the incompatibilities he had never let himself contemplate. John was just another character in his life, after all. The only person he would ever be able to truly rely on was himself, and wasn’t that a strange proposition, given his glaring disabilities?


	16. Vigenère

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daddy's home, darling.

Jim sat in silence on the balcony of his Spanish villa, contemplating the tattered remains of Moriarty’s web. The Holmes brothers had done an excellent job wiping out all those that might have been able to rat him out, and had not found even a single of his most trusted servants. Buffoons. 

He would have to eliminate them himself. It was too bad Magnussen was actually dead; no one had expected Sherlock to pull that trigger. The man’s personal angst and self-loathing truly knew no bounds.

He rattled off another disappearing coded message to Toby’s Instagram. So far, Molly had not seemed able to decrypt any of his messages.

She would need to be better if she was going to join him. He sighed. Perhaps this would be the one. He used the Vigenère cypher, as the others had failed so miserably. He was getting… Bored. But he needed to keep a low profile. He took another sip of his wine.

DILDODADDY386  
 _Miscellaneous letters from vagina R: tmdnsolrymbavaggwtcpfrvgimdwjuapptplsljumk_

They had made plans to meet in Spain before the Fall, though she had not known what it was he had been planning. He had ceased to see her for weeks before, as he entered the final planning stages, and as predicted had regressed into a raging attention whore. 

MOLLY  
 _??? srsly who is this_

He sighed again. He hoped she had seen the broadcast of him in the crown jewels. Freddy Mercury was a personal hero of his, and blowing his carefully cultivated cover had been worth it for every second of coverage. 

Should he take up knitting, or whittling? Retirement was terrible. 

He wondered how Ms. Adler was handling it. No better than him, he imagined. If he was very, very careful, perhaps he could play a game or two there. Moran was in deep cover in Nashville, he knew. 

Was Ms. Hooper bluffing with her question? Who else would possibly be sending her coded messages?

Had she acquired another mysterious lover in his absence?

He hurled his wineglass at the pink walls of the villa on principle. She could have done that. He even admired the nerve it took to attempt to replace Jim Moriarty. “Attempt” being the operative term.

Perhaps she was punishing him for trying to get Holmes to kill himself. Couldn’t she see that the man was a terrible waste of space and breath? So boring, so trivial. So easy to play. 

And yet, at the very end, there had been that moment of brilliance. Granted, Jim had lowered the difficulty setting on the Game by making himself a player, but nevertheless… He had been allowed to continue, and Moriarty had exited stage left. But it hadn’t been for dear Sherly. It hadn’t been. Holmes was only a toy, not a real person. 

And yet. Whenever Jim curbed his more homicidal tendencies, thinking of Molly, there was the shade of Sherlock Holmes doing the same thing for that poor little dog of his. Watson. 

He needed to do something about this. The mockery from his inner self was intolerable. 

**Sherly Holmes and Jim, sitting in a tree, F-U-C-K-I-N-**

_Ugh._

It was true that Holmes was a sight to see in bed. Moriarty wistfully recalled the brilliant placement of his surveillance bugs. Though the man was insufferable, he was beautiful in a waifish space-alien sort of way. 

Especially when he groaned Watson’s first name in his sleep, tenting the sheets terribly.

That had been the moment Jim had decided the Game needed to get personal.


	17. O

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the storm comes a wave  
> Crashing over the form  
> Leaving us in a daze  
> The wave
> 
> Smashing over our warm but trembling bodies  
> Our constructs so shoddy they cannot help but melt

Molly knew very well who was most likely messaging Toby’s account, as she only had about 20 followers, and her new lover was thick as molasses. She couldn’t figure out what he was saying for the life of her. 

Did he think she was some kind of genius? 

She was smart, but she had no experience with codebreaking, and she couldn’t very well ask for help. 

There was also the matter of trying to get Sherlock to kill himself. Molly didn’t at all know that she could forgive him for that. She also did not know if she could manage a life as a fugitive. Much as Jim has felt like her soulmate, and that, in a sense, she had already been somewhat mentally prepared for the truth… She had to think of herself, of her career. 

It wasn’t that she couldn’t financially afford to leave, but that she didn’t want to. Molly loved her work. 

**_I wish my coworkers would re-locate_** **_instead_** **,** she thought dreamily.

Soberly, she recalled that Jim did most likely have stored evidence of the work she had done for him. He could ruin her. 

_ He could ruin me in Spain,  _ floated through her mind.

**_Stop with that, you!_ ** She called out at the thought bubble.

She should really have been getting out of bed, but instead she had the empty chat box from DD open as she ruminated.  To never have those quiet evenings again? To never have the blisteringly hot sex?  Granted, she was old enough that she knew these were things that could be found again. But Jim had been so very special, in many ways outshining even Sherlock. She had thought it funny that the two most mysterious men in her life requested secret false doubles at around the same time but hadn’t connected the dots. 

_ See? Not a genius _ . She would never crack these damned codes. She needed to get out of bed.

-

One more try...


	18. Spanish Pink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eyes and Is, lies, spy on the prize  
> Rise on highs, tries, fly into ties

She was scrolling through Toby’s Instagram again, wondering what Jim thought of the pictures she had been posting lately. She’d commissioned an artist friend to paint Toby as a 14th century lord and they had been kind enough to send progress pictures.

Her flight would be boarding soon. She was on her way to Spain. She had never cracked the codes Jim had sent, but she figured posting Facebook updates on her location would seem innocent enough.

She didn’t know what would happen while she was there, and that was why she was going.

She still hadn’t spoken to Sherlock. She didn’t want to leave that thread dangling, but there were too many uncertainties in the picture for her to know what to tell him and what not to.

For all she knew, she might die on this trip. What if she wanted to leave, and Jim (who was Moriarty) wouldn’t let her?  What if their companionship and sex no longer satisfied her, and she wanted someone with more… heart? 

_ Not to mention a less severe addiction to dopamine,  _ she remembered bemusedly. It wasn’t the sort of need that could be placated with drugs. Jim, and Jim-who-was-Moriarty even more so, needed to achieve. Every experience had to be optimized.  Molly herself was a perfectionist, so she could relate at least to the compulsion to work hard for excellent results, but it went further with him. Ms. Hooper was perfect for Jim, but could she keep up with Jim Moriarty?

Granted, Moriarty was dead. Jim had made it clear with his actions that he would be trying to meet her halfway. But what would “trying” look like for Jim-who-had-been-Moriarty?

Perfectionism, drive. A recent past as a global kingpin. Giving that up for… something that might very well never blossom into love?

She was doing it, though. She even had Toby with her. He hated his carrier, but he wasn’t the type to meow. He may or may not poop in there out of spite if the flight got delayed. She happened to notice that it was 11:11 and wished with her fingers crossed for an uneventful flight.

She was just going on vacation by herself in a lovely country. She might meet a handsome stranger. Who said this had to be about Jim? But she had found herself saddened at herself, her own devotion to her work above excitement and adventure. Jim had been the only one with whom she hadn’t felt like a side-character, even as in reality she knew she had very much been. He had been a side-character for her too- that was why they had worked. They both were, so when they were together, neither of them was. 

**That doesn’t make any sense,** came from her gut. But she and her gut had had many frank conversations over tea of late, and so Molly knew this was the best thing for her to do. 

She had claimed her three weeks of paid vacation and booked her flight last week. It was short notice, but since she had been in the habit of never taking her vacations, her superiors were pleased to see her go.

The right letters finally splashed across the flight timetable. Hers was boarding economy class. 

She picked up the carrier, her backpack, and her tote bag, and made her way to the queue.  The last clue for the last code had been  _ Spanish Pink,  _ and her goal for the flight was to crack at least that one.


	19. The Portrait of Jim Moriarty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To the chest of Penelope, and jealousy, invest in me  
> Shaken to the core, that your feelings evanesce  
> Into the floor, never rest anymore, roar  
> Claimed you for my nest, for the more

No matter how he tried, Sherlock could not change the portraits of Moriarty from a raging, slavering beast of a man. His fear was deeply primal and was only surpassed by his fear of Eurus. 

He had made no progress with her blank canvases and, truthfully, preferred it that way. 

As he had that thought, he reached a hand towards the portrait of Moriarty in a crown and deftly peeled out the canvas, exposing a secret passage.

 **Christmas _,_ **he and his subconscious agreed.

Sherlock stepped through and fell down a pit.

He was not hitting any obstacles, but had the distinct impression of being sucked down a stone oesophagus. For a few seconds, Sherlock entertained himself trying without success to identify the species to which this oesophagus might belong. It was certainly not human, and almost certainly avian, given the shape of the trachea carved in relief into one side of the tube. 

Before he could glean more, he fell into a deep pile of what felt and looked like mulch. Hay, clover, oyster shells, dirt, and an overpowering odour of leaf mold. 

He was in an oubliette.

Oubliettes were at once the safest place to be and the most worrying. The mulch represented repressed or forgotten but not-yet-overwritten memories. 

No terrible memories or emotions would assail his consciousness here, as they were all present and accounted for, yet utterly neutralized by mixture with the mundane, decay, and innumerability. 

However, that he was in an oubliette after having stepped through Moriarty’s portrait meant that there was something he was hiding from himself with regards to the subject. It also meant that discovering the memory would be extremely tricky, as well as emotionally overwhelming upon success. 

Before the sensory haze of the mulch. The bird. What species?

 **Eagle** , his subconscious immediately responded, almost as if it had been waiting for the question.

His mother. Moriarty reminded him of his mother.

Was he turning into his father?

All this soft pining after John, determination to value emotions at the same level as thought… These were behaviours Sherlock had always dismissed in his father. Soft and doddering, but with so much intellectual and productive potential. 

His mother was no doubt an eagle. Predatory, territorial. His father was her “pet human”, so to speak, though she would never disrespect him by saying as much. That was where Moriarty and her differed. Well, one of the places. 

To his knowledge, his mother wasn’t a murderous sociopath, though some of the comments on her ratemyteacher page suggested otherwise. 

Still, it perhaps went some way towards explaining his fascination with Jim. 

As well as his terror of Moriarty. When his mother had her work face on, she was terrifying. Sherlock could remember many nights of tears as a small child, replaying some offhandedly devastating corrective remark in his head over and over and over. 

They hadn’t ever happened anywhere other than her study. And only ever when she was grading student work. Only, he was a student, and she went over all his work before he handed it in. He had spent a lot of time in there. He privately had viewed it as his “special training”. 

Was that a form of abuse? Sherlock couldn’t dismiss the tightness of the connection between these two feelings of emotion. 

Moriarty had always been many steps in front of him, so many he couldn’t even count them. The Game, the toying, the claim to be his biggest fan… The patterns were similar. And the fear had the same tinge, like being flayed alive by the playful gaze of the biggest predator on the continent. 

Still, Sherlock had dismissed it as being too sensitive. At the time, he had felt that he needed to become Moriarty in order to defeat him. _Victory always feels sweeter when it is at the antagonist’s own game_. Now, the thought filled him with revulsion. Moriarty had been a revolting man. There was nothing romantic about his schemes, nothing caring about The Game. Many people had died. 

Many people had died. This carried an additional weight it had not before. 

Sherlock did not want to marry his mother. He also did not want to become her. What did this say of his relationship to John? Had he been creating his own version of his father for the version of his mother that he was?

Still, many people had died, with new weight. This was progress that went beyond what he was aiming to achieve with John. 

Sherlock slowly came back to himself on the sofa. His tea was at just the perfect temperature to drink.


	20. Chasing Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The delicate and twisting vine  
> Ripe in spirals, rife with signs  
> Looking left,  
> mates in an eight  
> Pine

Sherlock slipped back into his mind palace, light as a sylph, retracing his steps back to the oubliette. His cup of tea had been just right. 

He surfaced in the red library. Part of Thought’s domain. Blessed reason.

His mother wasn’t a revolting woman. How did this impact how Sherlock should see Moriarty? 

The man was truly dead, after all, so continuing to fear him was senseless. Or was it? The dread of the idea of Moriarty, or of anyone like him, could continue to inspire him on his current path. Did he want to continue on this path? 

It would be unlike him not to follow something through to the end. Still, keeping the cellars barricaded had been a fairly dreadful image in hindsight, yet having them open meant feeling the fear all the time, which was intolerable. 

Equating Jim with his mother required further rumination, besides. Was there a way to break such associations? Moriarty also signified a realisation of his professional goals, a reason for the existence of consulting detectives. But was it not a chicken and egg situation? 

Just how long had Moriarty been following his career? Just how much of himself had truly shown in their limited interactions?

Had Jim come out of their game alive, would he have been as changed as Sherlock was?

-

Jim checked out of the hotel suite and slipped his sunglasses on to ward off the Spanish sun. Ms. Hooper had made the most predictable travel arrangements. Even had he not already known her online payment accounts and traced her purchases, he felt confident he could have guessed every spot on her list down to the order.

Still, the fun of reserving each of her selected rooms for the stay just before hers and leaving a single cigarette butt between the mattress and the box spring wasn’t getting old. 

Was she getting antsy without any news from him? Did she expect him to swoop down and abduct her like some common kidnapper? 

He hoped she was having serious princess and the pea moments. 

The question remained, however. How would he engineer their meeting? Would he, even?

This cat and mouse game suited him entirely. The reversal of typical stalker patterns pleased him to no end as well. He wasn’t following her. He wasn’t even surveilling her, except to laugh at her transparent calls to him on social media.

“Saw _La Sagrada Familia_ today. No tall dark strangers as of yet, @SueTravers ;)”

This was accompanied by a photo of Ms. Hooper looking extremely sunburnt, clearly taken by a fellow tourist, if the visored and potbellied shadow on the ground was anything to judge by. 

Insulting to the tourist, perhaps, who was clearly tall and most likely just as burnt as her. 

Jim himself had been piously applying his SPF100 sunscreen every day to maintain his Irish complexion. Molly’s sunburn angered him. How dare she not respect her skin’s limitations? Given the obnoxiously low thread counts at her chosen hotels, she must be in agony every night. 

The only agony Jim wanted for her was at his own hands. And from his tools, which he carried with him to each destination. He had even added to his kit in Madrid yesterday, which was where Ms. Hooper was headed at this very moment on a high-speed train. 

The purchase was a new gem in his collection, to be sure, and perfectly suited to Molly. A delicately sculpted full-face leather mask with bars over the open eye and mouth apertures. He had gotten chills when he had seen it in the display case. It wasn’t originally for sale, but he had been pursuasive.

Today, he was making a slight deviation from Ms. Hooper’s travel plan. He was paying a visit to a very old business associate who had gone to ground when James Moriarty Sr. had passed. Jim hadn’t called him back into service when he took over, and now it was time to collect on that kindness. 

It had been too long since he had killed someone, and this was too enticing a thread. Ms. Hooper couldn’t begrudge him this- he owned that man’s soul. Perhaps he would have him wear the mask while he did it. It needed to be christened, after all, and how better than with the tainted blood of a reformed hit man?


	21. Molly's Plot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...And darken the bloom  
> Twist the air out of my room  
> Swooning, spoon me, make perfume  
> Entomb me with these rags unruined

Molly was lounging on yet another hotel balcony, watching the sun set. She had noticed that every one of her hotel rooms had smelled aggressively febreezed, and to her sensitive nose, it was torture. 

Jim had known about her nose, since it was something her coworkers liked to poke fun at her for. Was this some sort of revenge for not reaching out directly?

Was she giving him too much credit?

No. He must be following her somehow. She had to believe that what they’d shared had been real for both of them. Real for different reasons, naturally, but real all the same. 

More importantly, she had to feel that passion again. The thrill of being prey on a wild chase across a foreign locale was driving her bonkers, to be honest. 

Every night in these tainted hotel rooms, she had felt the need to touch herself. But she never felt satisfied, like there was always a bigger summit on the horizon, even after she’d come herself silly. She didn’t think she cared anymore if she made it back to Britain. Mightn’t someone such as Jim Moriarty have use for someone with her particular skillset? 

The image of Sherlock surfaced in her mind. A surge of mixed feelings came along with it. Perhaps she did need to clip that thread.

She picked up her mobile, newly updated with a global plan, and texted.

MOLLY  
Sherlock. I need to talk to you. Call me.

Seconds after the text was sent, the call came in.

“Hello,” she began.

“Molly. What is it? Is it to do with Jim?”

“Ehm… Yes, Sherlock, I suppose it is. You see, ehh. This is hard to explain…”

“He’s not dead, is he. Why are you in Spain, Molly? Is it to meet with him? Where is he? You have to know you’re not safe.”

The questions were fired off so quickly she couldn’t begin to answer them. Before long, Sherlock had extracted her current hotel’s address from her and was packing his bags.  
  
Molly couldn’t argue with anything he said. It was true that she was putting herself in a dangerous position. However, as the wave of berating comments washed over her, she had the thought that this was probably the most convenient outcome for everyone. Both Sherlock and her could resolve their unfinished business with Jim… And with each other. However, she needed to ensure that she would have the upper hand and make it difficult for each of them to want to annihilate each other. She may not be a genius, but she was pretty sure she knew how to accomplish it.

“Sherlock. I have a code from Jim that I am fairly certain gives me his location in Spain, but I couldn’t crack it. It’s a Vigenère cipher and the keyword is Spanish Pink, but writing that or simply Spanish or simply Pink doesn’t seem to work…”

Sherlock stopped his rambling and thought for a moment, before suggesting she simply use the hex code for spanish pink as the keyword. 

She bade him wait for a minute while she pulled up the tab with the cipher decryption page and looked up the hex code. #f7bfbe. She plugged in the details and there they were- coordinates.

Pulling them up on Google Earth revealed a gorgeous (and very pink) villa in Palma de Majorca. 

She hesitated. Should she give this information to Sherlock? Would it anger Jim? But then, wouldn’t he expect her to be in cahoots with Sherlock? He didn’t know about the silence that had reigned between them for the last months.

But then again, he might rightly have assumed, and even split her allegiances on purpose- wouldn’t he have had another mortician on his payroll? Surely none as capable as herself, but still...

In for a penny, in for a pound. She didn’t know what was to come, but this was her adventure, and if she wanted to make it more adventurous, who was to tell her otherwise?

She gave Sherlock the coordinates with a rush of glee.

“Fantastic, Molly. I’ll send those over to Mycroft right away. I doubt Moriarty will have left anything incriminating, but it’s still a lead. Now listen to me. Do not rendez-vous with Moriarty. I understand you thought he felt something for you, but it was a lie. He was using you. I know it’s hard to hear. Do not meet him.”

“Alright, Sherlock. I know I was being foolish. I’ll pay for another night here and wait for you.”

Sherlock’s tone belied distrust, but he accepted what she said.

“Alright. I’ll be in Madrid by 9 o’clock tomorrow. And Molly… Be safe.”

“Yes, dear,” she replied in a beleaguered housewife tone, caught up in her own game, and hung up before Sherlock could reply.

Now, how to get Jim to come find her before 9 o’clock tomorrow? 

She would keep her word with Sherlock and not leave Madrid, but surely there must be some way…


End file.
